Description of the Related Art
Multitouch is a technology that provides hardware and software that allows computer users to control various applications via the manipulation of multiple digits on the surface of (or, for some devices, proximate to) a multitouch-enabled device. Multitouch technology generally consists of a touch-enabled device (referred to as a multitouch device) such as a touch-sensitive display device (computer display, screen, table, wall, etc.), touchpad, tablet, etc., as well as software that recognizes multiple, substantially simultaneous touch points on the surface of the multitouch device. Conventional touch-enabled technologies (e.g. a computer touchpad, ATM screen, etc) recognize only one touch point.
Clone Stamp and Other Image Editing Techniques
A clone stamp image editing technique, implemented as a clone stamp tool, may be used to paint one part of an image over another part of an image. A clone stamp technique may, for example, be used to duplicate objects in an image, or to remove defects from an image by copying pixels from another location onto a location of a defect. In conventional implementations of a clone stamp technique, user interactions are performed using cursor control device and keyboard inputs, or combinations thereof (e.g., control-click, option-click, alt-click, etc.) Conventional clone stamp tools may provide the user with the ability to select a brush tip for use with the clone stamp tool, so that the user can control the size of the clone area, by selecting a brush tip using cursor control device and/or keyboard input. In addition, using conventional clone stamp tools, selecting a sampling point involves positioning the pointer (cursor) at a desired location in an image using the cursor control device and performing a keyboard-cursor control device combination. For example, the combination may be an Alt-click in a Microsoft® Windows® (WINDOWS) operating system or an Option-click in an Apple® Macintosh® operating system (MAC OS).
Other image editing techniques similar to the clone stamp technique, such as a healing brush technique and a spot healing technique may be provided by some image editing applications. However, conventional methods for implementing and using these other techniques are similar to those described above for the clone stamp technique: the user interactions of these conventional methods are performed using cursor control device and keyboard inputs, or combinations thereof (e.g., control-click, option-click, alt-click, etc.)